Apparently, there are now federal charges against a lawyer that was linked to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign for allegedly lying to the FBI, and this has convinced one of the most prominent activists within the entertainment industry that they should have a change of heart and conclude that the Trump-Russia collusion theory was nonsense.
It was a video posted to YouTube on Thursday where outspoken English comedian Russell Brand is now announcing that he was “flabbergasted” by the federal grand jury’s indictment of Michael Sussman. This indictment was part of special counsel John Durham’s inquiry into how this Russia “collusion” mess really started, according to The Hill.
The indictment states that Sussman met with an FBI official in September 2016 in an effort to tip him off about a connection between then-Republican presidential nominee Donald John Trump with the Russian Alfa Bank, but the bureau was never able to substantiate this connection.
In the indictment, prosecutors are alleging that Sussman didn’t disclose that his law firm, Perkins-Cole, was actually working for Hillary Clinton’s campaign when he was talking to FBI General Counsel James Baker about 45 days before the election.
“Sussman’s false statement misled the FBI General Counsel and other FBI personnel concerning the political nature of his work and deprived the FBI of information that might have permitted it more fully to assess and uncover the origins of the relevant data and technical analysis, including the identities and motivations of Sussman’s clients,” the indictment stated.
A recent news release stated that the special counsel’s office noted that Sussman’s “false representation led the General Counsel to understand that Sussmann was providing information as a good citizen rather than a paid advocate or political operative. In fact, Sussmann assembled and conveyed the allegations to the FBI on behalf of at least two clients, including a U.S. technology executive and the Clinton Presidential Campaign.”
This news release also stated that they believed that Sussman had provided some information about the Alfa Bank theory to the media.
All of this was enough to alarm Brand, and during his video on Thursday he first of all titled it “So…Trump was RIGHT about Clinton and Russia Collusion!” and then this comedian and actor said that he felt the indictment was“serious evidence that it was the Clinton campaign and Hillary Clinton acolytes” behind the narrative.
“It seems like years ago that we were hearing that Trump was colluding with Russia, that he wouldn’t have won the election without Russia, that his whole presidency was kind of a Putin plot,” said Brand, star of “Get Him to the Greek.”
“Well, now there’s serious evidence that it was the Clinton campaign and Hillary Clinton acolytes that were directly involved in the generation of what has proven to be conspiracy — untrue!
“Think about how much media you watched. Me, a person who I think, broadly speaking, is from the left — a liberal, certainly not a Trump-supporting Republican, with respect to those of you who are — I find myself in awe, gobsmacked, flabbergasted and startled by these revelations.”
Brand also noted that “we have to recollect just how prevalent this story was. Every late-night talk-show, all over the news, it was just — you were bombarded with it.”
Brand even went on to say that he wanted to believe that the Democrat party will continue to be the party of “inclusivity and diversity and truth and social justice and all great, positive ideas”, but now he is having second thoughts.
“What my concern is becoming is that these are totemic issues pushed to the forefront to mask ordinary, regular corruption like the Russiagate thing, the Hunter Biden laptop, all of that stuff.”
Brand noted that he hadn’t been paying that much attention to that Russia “collusion” narrative when it was actually unfolding in 2016, but he noted that he did feel it had been “seen as a defining issue.” However, he “still, in 2020, saw that it was something that was being talked about.”
“And it was like, being sort of in a way discussed as if it was just an absolute fact. To discover that this was propaganda, a construct, a confection by the Democratic Party — who, of course, are now in government — is kind of beyond disappointing, because you begin to question and query what other things may not be true,” he said.
“Once you recognize that people create certain truths in order to meet certain ends and aims, the idea that you might be able to trust their integrity obviously dissolves.”
Of course, this might be a revelation for Brand, but for the rest of us its old news. It’s long been known that the FBI’s investigation of the Trump-Russia “collusion” was based on that elaborate hoax known as the Steele Dossier, which was nothing more than opposition research from the Clinton team.
The allegation that the Alfa Bank tip was actually provided by someone affiliated with the Clinton campaign and who lied to the bureau about his connection to said campaign might be new, but it’s nothing surprising.
Of course, the only thing surprising about this new turn of events is that the usually-liberal Russell Brand was willing to acknowledge that yes, something seems off, something seems rotten in the state of Denmark (or the United States, as it were).
Either way, we welcome Russell Brand to the reality party, even if he is a bit late to the show.
Of course, we are not deluding ourselves here. We realize that there probably won’t be that many celebrities that will join our camp, but this is definitely a good sign. Apparently, there are some chinks in the armor of this cherished fiction from the left.